


I Promise

by CoffeeJack



Series: Promises Made After [1]
Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Canon, id call it slow burn but this wont be long enough to qualify, if you have a better idea for a title please tell me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-06 17:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeJack/pseuds/CoffeeJack
Summary: It's going to be ok. I promise.He didn't mean to be captured. It just happened. The noise in his skull isn't as comforting when it means no one is coming for him.





	1. Humming

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I have ever written- I have Grammarly on but if you see something wrong or a bit fucky PLEASE comment it so I can fix it for y'all. Also, I did mean for this to be just like,,, a little one-off thing, then I Could Not Stop, so I guess it'll have like,,, chapters.
> 
> Tumblr: mister-ingenue

It's going to be ok. I promise. 

When he woke up tied to the hospital bed, the first thing he noticed was the duct tape over his mouth. 

The second thing he noticed was the hum, low and steady in the base of his skull. The Hive. His family. His home. Her, the Mothership. Her, who he worships with each new appendage of her will. Her, who he worships with every note that spills from his lips. 

The strangled sound from behind the tape did not worship Her. 

The tugging on the restraints and the IV drip in his arm held no song, no music. 

The pounding of his heart rang through his head, a staccato beat in his ears, not helped by his panicked tugging on the cuffs and the shaking of his hands. He wanted to go home. He wanted his family. He wanted his Mother. 

The hum in his skull pulsed, forming a second, unsteady beat. Someone was here. His family was near. A curtain surrounded his hospital bed, but the pulsing, a weak heartbeat, came from just beyond. 

Desperate, choked sounds tore themselves from his throat, calling to them, whoever was here with him. 

Beyond the curtain, more towards the front of his bed, rather than on it's left, he heard a door open and close, light glancing off the curtain surrounding him. 

“Is it awake?”

“I think so.”

The curtain pulled back. 

Two people in scrubs and medical masks appeared, reaching for the IV and him.

Muffled shrieks poured from him as he thrashed and kicked, trying desperately to escape. The humming in his skull writhed, trying desperately to reach out to him.

“I don’t like them being in the same room,” the doctor, a tall woman in a white lab coat, checked the clamp around the IV and gestured to his hand, all while disregarding the noise he was making.

“I don’t either, but we don’t have many other places to put them,” the nurse, a shorter woman in basic hospital scrubs, pinned his hand to the bed. Her eyes flickered over him, seemingly apologetically. 

He jerked, his arm tensing against the restraint as the doctor tugged the catheter out of his hand. 

The nurse pressed a gauze pad to his hand, sopping up the blue blood leaking from the wound. 

When the nurse pulled the gauze away, the two peered at it, examining the blood. 

“I think it’s working. It’s not as blue as it usually is- it’s definitely darker, and it-” the doctor gestured to him, “looks paler than usual.” 

“It needs another drip, right? Now that it’s awake?”

“For now yes- go start on the other one.”

The nurse slipped away, vanishing to the left of the curtain. 

The hum curled and pressed at the base of his skull, shrinking away as much as possible. Whoever was on the other side was afraid. 

He watched the doctor, wide-eyed and panicked as she lifted the clipboard at the end of his bed, scratching at it with her pen. 

She turned to him and peered closely at his face. He pressed himself back into the bed. He wanted to go home - he wanted the Hive - he wanted the Mothership.

She nodded, made another note, set the clipboard back in its place and began setting up the new IV bag. She held his hand tightly, not letting him wiggle or escape as she slid the needle into the back of his hand. It fucking hurt. She checked over her work and disappeared behind the curtain. 

The hum in his head grew stronger. 

He could hear muffled noises, the doctor hissing “dammit- hold him!” 

A keening sound accompanied the spike of agony in the base of his skull. 

He groaned in pain, dizzy in his agony. 

Where is the Hive? Why haven’t they come? Why were they the two separated, trapped in hospital beds in fucking Clivesdale of all places? 

The hum died, only a dull murmur remaining in its place, one that spread down his neck and grew up his skull. 

“Finally,” the doctor said.

“It is working. This one’s proof. It takes time but keeping them separated and silent is killing the spores,” the nurse said. “It’s painful to them, making them sick. This one wasn’t this pale when we first captured it.” 

“There’s nothing we can do except put them under and hope for the best. This is a waiting game.”

“Shouldn’t the other one be almost cured? He was infected later- so wouldn’t this” she paused, “this withdrawal, be shorter?”

“I thought so, but I guess not.”

“Let’s check in- she might even take this as good news.”

“How would this be good news?”

“Well that one’s awake, and this one’s blood is noticeably not blue- I’d say a few more days and it’ll be cured.”

“Let’s hope so- for her sake if nothing else.” The nurse pulled the curtain closed around his bed as she left, the doctor holding the door for her as they slipped away. 

He heaved a sigh, going limp and focused. The Hive - the Infected - don’t sleep. They do not need to. They can, however, slip into a sort of unconsciousness- where they slide away and reach out to the Mothership and the Hive.

He focused on the hum and slid into it, and as he reached out, he connected with nothing. Just the faint hum of the person behind the curtain. He was either too far or had been separated for too long to reach Her.

There was nothing he could do. He was separated from his family, his Hive, and whoever was with him was unconscious. He was alone. For the first time in… in he didn’t know how long; he was alone. They took his voice. They stole his goddamned voice, and there was nothing he could do about it. He tugged on the cuffs around his wrists and ankles again. There wasn't much chance of him getting out of these without someone else's help.

He kept his eyes closed. He lay still and waited. The Hive knew where he was; he was sure of it. They would come. Eventually.


	2. Buzzing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhhh ok so remember how Emma said "what am I gonna do without that dollar I have to split with five other people?" Well, we know Zoe, Nora and Emma, but who are the other two? ;) Not to say I tossed in some OC's but I did do that just a TASTEFUL amount. I didn't plan to do this and they don't have big enough roles to change the tags here so it's gucci is cool its chill. 
> 
> I'm gonna make a promise right here right now: I will reply to EVERY single comment. Every one of them. I promise.  
> I'm also down to just be a friend, that's always gucci cool.
> 
>  
> 
> Tumblr: mister-ingenue

When he opened his eyes again, he was in pain. His head was splitting, the buzz like a swarm of bees behind his eyes. He forced his eyes open and only saw a blue-tinted haze. His face was wet.

Muffled voiced and blurry figures surrounded him, two held his shoulders down while a third pressed a cloth to his face, one that came away dark with his blue blood.

He moaned, shifting against the hands holding him down.

He heaved in a breath, trying desperately to breathe through his nose around the blood spilling out.

A fourth person, another blurry shape, leaned over him and tore the duct tape away.

He coughed and hacked, twisting under the hands, blood oozing from his nose and his mouth.

If he bit someone right now… the apotheosis would take root in them, and then he wouldn’t be so goddamn hungry. If he infected someone, the Hive would come. They’d have to. 

A fifth person appeared, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look up at her. He thought it was the doctor, with her curly dark hair and white lab coat. A snarl ripped itself from his throat as he lunged at her, snapping at her hands.

She was faster than he expected, pulling her hands back easily. She drew something from her coat pocket and said something to her group. He couldn’t make out the words.

The hands pressed harder, rendering his shoulders and arms immobile. 

He thrashed against them as the doctor shoved the needle into his arm. He shrieked as ice spread through his right bicep. 

Then came the calm. He went limp, and the hands slid away. The cloth reappeared, pressing at his face as they tried to mop away the blood. He heard the door shut and his eyes rolled about the blue-tinted room to see that he was alone with the person sitting his side.

The buzz in his skull intensified as the person in his left awoke. The sound formed a song, a soft melody that itched deep in his ears.

He knew the melody rattling through his skull, but he could not remember the words to the song.

It was whatever they gave him. It had to be. He knew the words, he knew the beat, the melody, the choreography. They poisoned him! 

A soft whine pulled itself from his throat as he tried desperately to contact Her.

Nothing. 

Silence.

She couldn’t hear him.

The buzzing in his head were heartbeats, his and the others.

They were alone.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

Being cut off from the Hive meant being cut off from help, from salvation, from Her.

He was linked to the other’s mind, and now that they were awake, they could figure out what to do.

He tried to connect, to communicate, but his head was stuffed and foggy from whatever he had been given.

His vision went blue as tears clouded his eyes. Being alone was not a concept he wanted to deal with. When he joined the Hive, the Mothership told him he’d never be alone again. 

She didn’t lie. She couldn’t have. The Mothership is the one who gave him this gift, and he thanks and worships her every day because of it. She wouldn’t strand him. The Hive must be coming. 

The uninfected must have upped their defenses against them is all, but they already infiltrated once, so who’s to say they can’t do it again?  
He would just have to wait. 

He realized his eyes were growing clearer, the blue draining away in his tears. They stung.

He also realized was his wrists were rubbed raw from the cuffs, and the person with the cloth was having trouble cleaning the blood away from under the cuffs. 

He wanted to smile. He didn’t. Instead, he lay still and relaxed, and he waited. Eventually, the person grew frustrated, unfastening the cuff and wrapping his wrist in the cloth.

He ripped his hand away and grabbed the person by their hair, long and loose and dangerous, dragging them to him and pulling himself up.

He tangled his fingers in her hair and crashed his mouth against hers, giving her the gift he had been given so long ago. 

He pulled back, and her lips were stained blue. She grinned at him, the song pounding in her heart as the buzz in his head doubled.

She leaned over him, undoing the cuffs and helping him to stand.

‘Dear sister,’ he purred easily through the newly forged mind-link, ‘whatever was given to me has weakened me.’

She nodded and drew his arm around her shoulders heaving him up.

She paused, her eyes flickering to the curtain, then back to him.

‘Of course, they are family.’

She drew the curtain back.

This was someone he knew. 

This was someone he knew. Someone from before. His brother under the Mothership.

He did not look good. A disconnect from the Hive is a poison, something to be avoided. His brother was suffering from this poison, he was pale and shaky, with bags under his eyes more purple than blue. 

His brother’s mind-link had died out, only his heartbeat remaining, pounding in his and his sisters head.

He knew what he had felt earlier was not his brother waking up, but his mind-link dying. Surprising how similar they felt.

He looked at his new sister, Lacey, and made the decision. They couldn’t take him. He was more human than they were, and he was almost completely disconnected from the Hive. They couldn’t reinfect him. Not like this. 

A melody came through the mind-link, the song the Hive uses to mourn their own. They have conquered so many planets, and with every one of their own they lost, they sing the morning song. Even if the death was at their own hands.

He joined her, the mind-link a harsh buzzing in his ears. Lacey gently set him against their brother's bed, and stalked over to the nearby cabinet, retrieving a scalpel. 

She was singing their mourning song aloud, her voice strong and pure. His throat was dry, and he couldn’t force out the words. His voice joined hers through the mind-link alone, and that would have to be enough.

He pushed himself off the bed to stand on shaky legs. He placed his hand on her shoulder. 

‘I am so sorry brother,’ they sang, a harmony that would send their brother home, back to the Mothership.

She raised the scalpel, and then her head exploded, her blue blood splashing across his face. 

Then she fell, the scalpel still clutched in her fist.

‘I’m so, so sorry, sister’ was the last thing that ran through his head before something cracked against it, sending him crashing down, collapsing against the bed.


	3. Pounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why did it turn out like this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched the ENTIRE livestream,,,,, I was the one to get Rob to sing Glow, which is my biggest and best achievement in life. Also, I'm sorry this was later than it usually is! I had to do an English project (due tomorrow lmao) and I had to do that before I could finish up this chapter! I'm trying to make them all about 1,000 words or more and I am NOT giving up on chapter 3. Thank you all so much for your support -- I deadass cried reading one of your comments (you know wh you are ;)) Thank you all so much! And I WILL finish this story- the only unknown is if I'm gonna write a second series of what happens After this one! :)
> 
> Tumblr: mister-ingenue

How did this happen? 

How did he end up here, slumped against the bed, his sister’s blood a mask over his face with her sprawled across the floor below him?

He heard muffled voices above him, one high and female, and the second was younger and more nasally.

His eyes rolled up, trying to see who was above him, despite his face being squished against the bedsheets. 

He couldn’t see them. The back of his head felt wet. Dark blue blood slid down his face into his eyes, blinding him.

The younger voice, a teenager maybe, spoke in panicked bursts “oh my god! Oh my god! I killed her! I killed Lacey! I-”

“HEY! Listen to me- if you hadn’t done that, he would be dead, and we would be next!” 

“But, but she’s dead! She’s dead, and I killed her!” 

“She was already dead! She was infected!” 

“We could have cured her! We could have saved her! The treatment is working!” 

“Again, if you hadn’t shot her, he would be DEAD! You did what you had to do!”

“I killed her! I can’t take that back! We could have found a way, Melissa!” The voice dissolved into hitching sobs as his vision dissolved into darkness.

He was deep under, floating in the deep black void where the Mothership usually lingers. She was not there now. 

He had been in the hospital too long, 7 days at this point. 

He wasn’t too far gone. Not yet. His brother had been here for 9 days, and he was past the point of no return.

Hopelessness set in. He had made mistakes; he knew this. Perhaps the Hive was just punishing him, making him wait until the last minute before they came for them… for him. 

He was captured. He was careful, much more careful than his brother. 

They had infiltrated the base. He wanted her, he had promised to come back to her after all. They found her at last. They finally found her. 

He was going to give her the gift. She trusted him after all, he wanted her to trust him with this. His brother had brought the others, and come in with them. Their friends from before but their family now, joined under the one true Mother. Then things went…. wrong. Very, very wrong.

He had her, he was so close. Then they came in. The organization running the base. PEIP, as they called themselves.

They had died. The ones his brother had brought in. They were mowed down trying to bestow their gifts upon the ungrateful. She had run, escaping through the stream of officers pouring through the doors, leaving him and his gift behind.

The Mothership screamed as his brothers and sisters fell, and with his heart pounding in his ears he had run. 

He had hidden, passing room to room, ducking into closets and curing into corners as heartbeats pounding in his head died away.

All but one. 

The last heartbeat left, his and his brothers. The Mothership, in her fury, sounded the war drums that beat behind his eyes. 

But for the first time since he turned, he wanted to live.

He felt it when his brother was captured. 

He felt it when his brother was drugged.

He felt it as he starved.

He felt it for two days while he hid. 

The Mothership didn’t tell him to run. Didn’t tell him to hide. Didn’t do anything at all really. Just lingered in his mind, silent. 

The silence did not last.

He had run, chased by PEIP officers. He had ripped open a door, hoping for the outside, or a hallway, but being greeted with only a supply closet. 

He hadn’t realized they were so close behind him.

He bashed his nose on the back wall when they shoved him in and slammed the door behind him. 

He also didn’t realize the door locked from the outside. 

They kept him trapped in the small, dark room for two more days.

He pounded on the door, crooning to the guards outside to release him, to free him and let him give them the gift he had.

The silence in his head, of course, did not last.

When the Hive began to sing their mourning song, he heard it. Every. Single. One.

The Hive sang in his head, hundreds of planets all singing in unison. 

They dragged him out as he screamed, blue blood pouring from his ears as trillions of voices wailed their sorrow in his skull.

This was the Mothership’s punishment. 

This was his fault that they died, and he would atone for it in his blood.

The singing did not stop as they pulled him from the closet.

The singing did not stop as they dragged him down the hallway.

The singing did not stop as he fought.

The singing did not stop as he was strapped to the bed.

The singing did not stop as the curtain was pulled around him. 

The singing did not stop as the room cleared and he was left alone.

The singing didn’t stop for 3 days.

No one came as he screamed for hours. 

No one came as he suffered.

No one came when the Mothership dragged the mourning song from his lips and forced him to sing until he could not breathe.

No one came until his head split apart and blood poured from his lips, the song still rasping from his vocal cords, an apology to all those who were killed for his foolish mistake. 

Someone came and changed him from his bloodstained suit to a hospital gown. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything at all. 

The song did not stop pounding, shifting from behind his eyes to his ears to the base of his skull.

They left him alone most of the time, only coming in to make sure he was still alive.

She did not come. He came for her, but she did not come for him.

When he slid out of consciousness, the beat still pounding in his ears, he could only hope his penance was paid.


	4. Screaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I had a shitty day, and I have both terminal sleepy bitch disease, AND terminal dumb bastard disease. SO: guys, a hint: the narrator is wearing a suit in Inevitable, so I dunno man... Mr. Davidson's suit is pretty snazzy... ;)  
> All will be revealed in chapter 5. I promise ;)  
> I really, really appreciate all of your comments (they make my day, deadass)-- I'm super glad y'all like this!! 
> 
> Tumblr: mister-ingenue
> 
> ;)

Quiet.

The Mothership returned to him. He hadn’t been moved from where he lay slumped across the bed, but he was also not sure how much time had already passed.

Murmurs.

People scurried in and out of the room, removing his sister, removing Lacey. The Hive does not sleep. They do not dream. He wished they could, so he could wake up from this nightmare. He wanted to sleep. He didn’t realize how genuinely exhausted he was. But perhaps that was just the blood loss speaking.

Mutters.

Hands were everywhere. He felt hands on his back, making sure he was still breathing, his throat, checking his weak pulse, his head, sponging away the blood oozing from the wound.

Whispers.

He lingered, halfway between awake and unconscious, just awake enough to make out the muffled sounds around him, but barely unconscious enough to be immobile.

Words.

Voices broke through the murk in his ears. They were muddled and soft, but he made them out, desperate for sound to block out the blood rushing in his ears.

“A softball bat?” He didn’t know this voice.

“Yes.” That was Melissa. 

“And you have… a glock?”

“Yeah.” That was the teenager.

“So you were nearby, heard singing, burst in, and… what? Blew Lacey’s brains out?”

“Pretty much.” Melissa’s voice was icy.

“You did a good thing son. If not for you, the infection would have spread further. PEIP thanks you for your service. But next time? Maybe retrieve some professional assistance - we do have guards and officers on base you know.”

“We handled it. No thanks to you and your idiot guards who are supposed to be watching the cameras.” Melissa’s voice rose into a shout, then the voices fizzled out again.

He lay in agony, head throbbing to the weak, fluttering beat of his heart, but when the Mothership returned, she entered his mind like a lullaby, gently pulling herself in and singing, filling the void she had once been in. 

She was warm. She was comforting. She was the Mothership. She was the Mother. She was Her. She was who he worshipped with every note.

Then, she saw him. He floated in the void just before her, bloody as he was in the real world. 

She was big, infinitely so, trillions of minds, billions of planets, generations and universes, all part of Her. When she came to him, however, she was smaller, human-sized.

She drifted toward him, in control of this void, and curled her “arms” around him, drawing him closer into a hug, touching his cheek, the warmth from her palm oozing into his cheek. He leaned into her hand, desperate to comfort, for atonement.

She sang, asking him, her son, if he was alright, if he was safe, asking him what was wrong, and asking him about his brother. 

He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came forth.

The Mothership sang again, her arms around him comforting and soft, the hand against his face wiping away the blood.

Nothing. He wasn’t sure he knew the words.

The Mothership sang to him again, harsher this time. Telling him to respond, her arms tight around him, the hand vanishing from his face.

She sang again, louder and more grating, her limbs cold circling him. 

He tried again, desperately. Nothing. His voice was gone. He was silenced.

The Mothership pulled her limbs up to grasp his head, and there she saw what had happened to him, his brother, and his short-lived sister. She saw everything he had done since she left him alone.

Her face dropped, the mourning song murmuring around her, grieving for his lost brother and sister. She saw the guilt he felt. He blamed himself for their deaths.

She agreed.

Her extremities, long and smooth and cool, slid and circled themselves around his arms, clamping down and squeezing.

The Mothership sang, again and again, louder and louder and louder until the rhythm dissolved into a single, steady note — a scream. 

Her appendages tore themselves away from him, tearing at his flesh, retreating back into the main body of Her. The human-sized woman was gone, only the immensity of Her remaining.

He rasped, apologizing, pleading, begging her forgiveness.

A sharp agony sliced across his face as the void behind him tore, a white light pouring through.

The Mothership screamed infinitely louder, lashing at him, so small and fragile, so… human.

Another gash opened in this void, above him, white light pouring like blood onto him.

Her appendages, blue and long and barbed, whipped against him, throwing him backward.

Her blows rained down, and the void around him tore itself to shreds, light cascading over his bloody, beaten body.

Then she threw him, hurling him away from her and Her Gift. The white expanse poured light into this void, and he fell toward the torn seam below him, the Mothership shrieking and tearing apart the world above him, singing and screaming the song of his failures, of his disappointments, of his dissension.

Then he dropped into the rip, the world blank and cold around him, and he heard voices, warped and distorted as if being heard through a fishbowl. 

His blood hurt.

“Get him back on that bed and strap him down!”

His nerves hurt.

“Move the other one into recovery-”

His joints hurt.

“Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

His bones hurt.

“He won't stop bleeding! What do I do?”

His skin hurt.

“This is the second day of him like this-”

His legs hurt.

“He’s so pale-”

His arms hurt.

“The bruises are forming around his eyes-”

His chest hurt.

“He’s seizing-”

His throat hurt.

“We can’t give him the morphine. We don’t know what it’ll do-”

His head hurt.

“It’s the fourth day! Why can’t you help him!”

His ears hurt.

“This is all we can do for him!”

His eyes hurt.

“This looks like the worst it’ll get-”

He hurt.

“I don’t want to see him suffer anymore.”

He did not wake up.

“I’m so sorry.”

He did not want to.


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is how it ends then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it y'all! We learn everything today- this is where this story ends. Comment if you want a sequel (and what you'd even want???) Also-- if you have any like,,, "oh if you had done this X, Y, and Z it would have been really cool-- drop those in too plzzz 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading! I really appreciate all of your support!
> 
> Hellsite username: mister-ingenue

When he woke up lying the hospital bed, the first thing he noticed were the lack of restraints around him. 

The second thing he noticed was the silence, ice cold and numbing in the base of his skull. The Hive. His family. His home. Her, the Mothership. Her, who he worshipped with each new appendage of her will. Her, who he worshipped with every note that- no. No, not anymore. 

His head was silent. No buzz, no hum, no heartbeat from the infected behind the curtain, which, for the first time, was not drawn shut around his bed.

He was truly and honestly alone in his head for the first time since… since the meteor. Since the Starlight Theater. Since the grenade.

The strangled moan that tore itself from his vocal cords definitely did not worship Her. 

He ached all over. He was tired, deeply, exhaustion curled around his bones, weighing him down.

The tugging on the IV drip in his arm held no song, no music. 

From what he remembered, he had been there for 6 days, then was hit with… a softball bat? Then he was down and out for 4 more days. 

Then the door swung open, and people flooded in.

He flailed, knees cracking against the linoleum as he tumbled down out of the bed, tearing the IV out of his hand as he scrambled, pressing himself into the corner next to his bed, curling his knees up to his chest. Then he saw. The linoleum tiles had scraped his knees, and the blood beading on his skin was red. Bright, human, red.

The people, so many, all dressed in hospital scrubs, rushed around the bed towards him.

They reached for him as he fought, as he kicked out at black-clothed legs and arms. They grabbed his arms and dragged him toward the bed as he fought and screamed, or rather, rasping in panic, knees stinging and feet scrambling against the floor. 

The dumped him into the bed and pulled the curtain around him, their silhouettes on the other side dark against it. 

He curled in on himself, drawing his knees up and hunching over, making himself seem as small as possible. If he was lucky, he’d just disappear, or, even better, wake up from this nightmare. Maybe he’d even go back to the space in his head. It was quiet there.

He couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in the room. 

He shook, rattling the bed. 

His mouth was so dry and he was so hungry.

The door opened again, and more people entered, talking rapidly.

“You're sure he’s awake?”

“And that he’s human?”

He recognized both voices, he was sure. The first voice was high and female, the woman from before, Melissa, and the second was younger and more nasally, the teenager from before. 

When the curtain drew back, there was a woman with long hair and black glasses, and a tall teenager with glass.

They stayed close together, even as they crept toward the foot of his bed.   
“Are you… you?”

He didn’t respond. He couldn’t, his throat to dry, and words damning. If he spoke, he would shatter like glass. 

“Look at his knees - it’s red.” The teenager, several inches taller than Melissa leaned down slightly to murmur in her ears.

Melissa inclined her head, peering at his scraped knees. Nodded to a guard posted nearby - “go get them.”

She moved closer, slowly, so slowly, as if he would turn to dust and blow away if she moved too fast. 

“I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Melissa. We worked together.”

He nodded. He had memories, few and vague, but still there.

The teen stayed just behind Melissa. “We’ve never met. I’m-”

He was interrupted. 

The door swung open. 

A man, tall and pale and bruised, walking slowly and carefully into the room, but whole and alive. The person behind the curtain. His brother, Professor Henry Hidgens. 

Hidgens joined the two others at the foot of his bed, not saying a word, merely nodding at him through tired, bruised eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Melissa spoke softly and carefully to the taller man standing between her and the teenager. 

He didn’t say anything, just patted her hand gently where it rested on the footboard of his bed.

Someone shouted in the hallway. “Why was I not the first person to know about this? How long has he been awake?”

The doctor exploded into the room.

She rounded the bed, snagging the clipboard at the foot, ignoring the others and walking purposefully to where he cowered on the bed.

“So. You’re awake. I’m General Schaffer, I run this base and keep tabs on you two-” she gestured at him and Hidgens. “How are you feeling?”

He was not about to respond. Hell no.

She scribbled something on the clipboard and glanced back at Melissa. “He been responsive?”

“He remembers me. From before, I think.”

Schaffer nodded, making a note on her clipboard. “Has she been told yet?”

“No. We weren't sure how to tell her, ” The guard standing next to the door said, pulling himself up straighter.

“Go- and Remus? Be gentle.”

He saluted, and stalked from the room, letting the door fall shut behind him.

“So,” Schaffer said, turning back to him, “we’re going to keep you under observation for a while, but at this point, we’re confident you’ll make a full recovery - Hidgens has been incredibly helpful so far; he’s on the mend. We have faith you will be too.”

He nodded softly.

She scrawled another note and stood, noticing the lack of IV catheter in his hand. She rounded his bed again and clamped the tubing, cutting off the fluid. She rolled up the tube and wheeled the IV stand out of the way.

Then the shrieking started, and steadily increased, coming closer and closer until the door exploded open.

Remus entered the room again, and with him was…

Was…

Was Emma.

Everything went very, very still for him. 

Everyone filed out of the room, he didn't notice, he didn't care.

She watched him, wary, but not afraid.

“Emma,” he croaked, his first words in a long, long time. 

She flinched. 

“Emma,” he tried again, “I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry.” The tears welled up in his eyes, but he couldn’t stop watching her. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he crumbled, shaking with heaving sobs. 

Gentle hands touched his shoulders. He looked up, and Emma was there. She pulled him to her and curled her arms around him.

“It’s going to be ok. I promise.” She whispered. 

“It’s going to be ok.”

“I promise Paul.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paul Matthews is aromantic and you can pry that from my cold, dead, blue-shit infected hands.


End file.
